by Matt Baamonde.

It’s a beautiful, warm, Saturday, and the Boston Marathon is coming up, right around the corner on a Monday. Considered one of the most prestigious sports events in the world, the Marathon has many people lining the streets, particularly Newbury and Boylston Street, which contain clubs, restaurants, stores, shopping centers and one of the major symbols of Boston life, the Prudential Center.

We’ve just begun our three-day weekend at Berklee, which means back-breaking work all day to prepare for finals, and then off to parties at night. Thursday night, Berklee celebrated its first Battle of the Bands for its student run record label Heavy Rotation Records.

They choose five bands out of fifty that entered the contest to compete in the battle. The winner, The Fens, a grooving classic pop/rock band, will be featured on their new album.

Lots of change is beginning to take place.

Mostly everyone in my dorm will be moving out of their rooms soon for next year, either to a new room or off campus entirely. A lot of people decide to leave the dorms after their first semester, and many just simply lose their housing contracts because they didn’t remember to renew. Berklee can only sustain 40% of the student population in the dorms, most of which are freshman, since Berklee tries to make the most room for them.

The students that are in the dorms currently, and plan to stay again, enter a complicated lottery procedure for available rooms. If their numbers qualify they can either keep their room or decide to upgrade. If they keep their room, like my roommate and I did, then it is taken out of the running. If they decide to upgrade or switch buildings or rooms then they go back to the housing office with a list of their top requested building and room numbers. It goes by a first come, first serve basis and they go down their list until a room that hasn’t already been picked is available.

The single and double rooms in the 150 Massachusetts Ave building always go first, so if you manage to get one your first year here, (and, of course, enjoy dorm life) keep it!

Another thing that can vastly affect your experience at Berklee, or college in general, is the relationship you’ll have with your roommate(s). My roommate and I were lucky to have enough in common to become good friends. We also have complementing abilities and can usually help or tutor each other in the skill sets necessary to succeed at Berklee. This is not usually the case; I know a lot of people who are not necessarily at odds with their assigned roommates, but don’t really click with them in any way. A lot of these people end up hanging out outside of their room and usually end up moving out on their own or with closer friends by break time or at the end of the year.

Friends. This is a big thing for Berklee students on more levels than you might expect. Even if you get along famously with your roommate, I recommend going out and meeting as many people as possible and establishing other solid relationships. Berklee highly advocates networking since a lot of the time, especially in the music industry, it doesn’t matter how good you are as much as who you know.

It is almost impossible not to meet and make great friends at Berklee and Boston in general, but there are a lot of things to consider. You do need some level of social skill, and be able to adapt to people’s demanding schedules. People at Berklee are extremely busy, and value their time at a premium. You won’t find a lot of slackers who make it past a single semester and have time to hang out for hours and hours.

Most people at Berklee have a large group of good friends and acquaintances, and a very small group of really close friends. Then there will be your go-to musicians. Similar to making friends you have to make, well, bands, if you are a performer. Finding musicians to jam with is all based on who knows whom, and who can hook you up with whom.

For instance, if you want to put together a band for a jazz quintet, you may not like the girl at the end of the hall, but she can play bass, and be a valuable musician. The same goes for recording songs and any other music-related projects that require specific instrumentalists.

You’ll see a lot of this happening as you arrive at Berklee. By the end of your first week you’ll be sick of the questions, “Where are you from?” “What semester are you?” “What do you play?” and the most commonly repeated answers of, “Guitar,” from guys, and, “Vocalist,” from women.

So this brings up another precious issue: men, women and dating at Berklee. This is a very complicated situation that I’m sure many people of both sexes have questions about.

The truth is, at Berklee, women hold the cards. Sorry guys, but as should be expected at a music school, the ratio is pretty gloomy at 5 men to 1 woman, and unlike home they won’t be impressed by your shredalicious guitar licks.

Women, you can expect to be approached by a lot of guys, and to have your pick at the best of them.

For both, my recommendation is to not come to Berklee under the impression that your love life will be very fulfilling at first, at least in the traditional sense. In terms of meeting people, making a lot of friends I would say is more important at Berklee. You want connections during and after Berklee, and losing a valuable musician or asset because you made an inappropriate pass at them can often not be worth it. On the other hand, I don’t want to give the wrong impression; there is a lot of inter-Berklee dating, you will see lots of smooching couples on the “Beach” outside of 150, but most of these couples don’t form until months into the year.

But fret not (sorry!), if you can’t find your soul mate amidst the Berklee hallways! Just step outside into beautiful Boston, home of seemingly thousands of colleges and millions of college students. Take a walk down Boylston or Newbury Street and you’ll understand how easy it is to meet people.

(If you’ve got game, playa…)

Maintaining the relationship, on the hand, is a difficult subject. You will find yourself crunched for time and the truth is, there will be days were you simply do not have time for a significant other.

Berklee, and music in general, is like that.

This can easily lead to angry and destructive scenarios that you want to try to avoid, considering it will affect your emotional state. For a lot of new students, it’s also their first time away from home and can be doubly as depressing. Add to the mix the long-term, long-distance relationships that many Berklee students come to school trying to maintain, and you will find that most don’t last more than a few months.

These facts are unfortunate, but they are true and need to be taken seriously in your planning before coming to Berklee. I don’t mean to sound negative but I have experienced some of this firsthand and it can get in the way of things that really matter while you are here. To succeed and take advantage of all the opportunities you are given you really need to focus on the end goal.

April Teacher Review

Richard Grudzinski – Arranging – Rich is a very experienced composer, arranger, copyist and desktop publishing consultant. A keyboardist, he teaches at a very efficient fast pace. You need to keep yourself awake and alert in his class to make sure you understand everything. If you have a background in writing music, he is an excellent teacher and you can usually keep up with his pace. If arranging and writing for drums, bass, guitar, and keyboards are new for you then maybe consider waiting a few semesters before taking a class with him.

Daryl Lowery – Ear Training – A very gifted saxophonist, Daryl runs a more advanced, fast-paced ear training class. If you enjoy a challenge, are a more of a ‘by ear’ musician than a ‘written’ musician who likes moving quickly and doesn’t mind singing in front of a group of people every week for quizzes, then he is definitely right for you. He is largely focused directly out of the ear training textbooks so keep in mind his class will require a lot of out of class preparation.

Eric Byers – Writing Skills – A guitarist, bassist and banjoist, Eric gets right down to work and tries to get you to learn as much as possible. He assigns fun, but challenging, projects and homework assignments that he hopes you can pull off with a very creative and original edge. He can be very particular as far as ‘grammatical’ errors are concerned and I recommend him to anyone who has a background in writing music.

All the best,

Matthew Baamonde
“Baazar”